Chuck Versus the Vampire
by Lion in the Land
Summary: Hellsing faces a vampire like they've never seen before. It's so different, they need to call in a little help from the States...Team Bartowski. ONE SHOT


**Disclaimer:** Characters and plotlines from _Chuck_ and _Hellsing_ are property of the creators and writers of those series. No copyright infringement is intended.

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For Little LiLa, who wanted me to write a _Chuck_ story

and for Lucius, who challenged me to do it in a one-shot

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**Chuck Versus the Vampire**

"We have information that leads us to believe Agent Shaw is hiding out in the south of England." This announcement comes from a stern grandmotherly-looking woman in a dark suit jacket that bears the full markings of a U.S. General. Her image is projected over a large television screen that four individuals stand watching.

"Well, tally ho," jokes a short bearded fella that everyone ignores.

"South of England? What's he doing there?" a pretty woman with long blonde hair asks.

"He's doing a number of things," the General answers evasively. "You'll be given full details upon your arrival at the stakeout cabin.

"Who exactly will be given full details?" A dark-haired gangly guy asks. Everything about Shaw puts him on edge.

"All of Team Bartowski is going on this mission. We've let Shaw slip through our fingers too many times, and we aren't taking any chances this time."

A tall, beefy dark blond man grunts his approval.

"Your travel itinerary is in the envelope. Oh, and team Bartowski, I suggest you study up on vampire lore." The screen goes black.

"Vampire lore?" the gangly one questions. He thought he'd heard just about everything in the three years since he'd been thrust into the spy business, but undead creatures of the night? This is new.

"Cults," the pretty blonde answers succinctly. "They pretend to be vampires—only go out at night, dress in black, drink blood."

"Sickos," the burly guy grunts.

"The cults' members are easily influenced and susceptible to manipulation. Now that we've decimated the Ring, Shaw may have found himself a vampire cult to do his bidding," the lone female in the quartet concludes.

"So studying vampire lore will help us think like the cult so we can find their lair and thus Shaw," the gangly one surmises.

"Not a problem," the short, bearded guy pipes in. "I take down second form Dracula every single time in Castlevania; know exactly how his mind works. Are we bringing a whip?"

"Open the envelope, Bartowski," the burly one grunts, anxious to get started.

Bartowski, the gangly one, opens the envelope he's been holding and pulls out four long slips of paper. "Plane tickets to Heathrow." He examines them further and his brow wrinkles. "Four different flights."

"Woah, they're not kidding about not taking any chances," the burly one comments.

"Chances on what?" The guy with the beard, the most recent addition to the team, asks.

"On one of the planes going down."

"Oh, yeah, ahem, of course, yeah. I figured that's what it was," the little guy responds.

Bartowski pulls out another piece of paper. "We'll rendezvous at the Hertz car rental counter at Heathrow. Casey," he says and hands the burly one a plane ticket, "Sarah." The blonde reaches out for hers. "And Morgan." He solemly hands out the final ticket and says, "See you in London."

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. . . . .

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Chuck Bartowski and Sarah Walker sit in the front seat of a small hatchback car. Chuck drives, while Sarah sits to his left and navigates. John Casey's bulk takes up the entirety of the back seat as he sits sideways across it. In his lap is the weaponry he's just reassembled from the individual pieces they'd cleverly concealed in their luggage.

Chuck's gaze is fixed on the road before him. A sadness permeates his brown eyes.

Sarah reaches out and touches his arm. "You feel bad about Morgan, don't you?" she asks.

Chuck nods and says in a near whisper, "It just doesn't seem fair."

"Hey! He wanted to be a spy," Casey interjects as he clicks the main spring housing into place. "He should've realized that quick reflexes were a necessary part of the job."

From behind him, wedged between two pieces of luggage in the hatch, Morgan Grimes insists, "He's right, Chuck. Next time I'll know to call dibs on a prime seat sooner. And it's not so bad back here." Just then the car hits a bump in the road and Sarah's cosmetic case topples to smack Morgan in the head. "Ow. Besides, I'm getting lots of research done."

Morgan holds up a large, encyclopedia-sized volume. "We're in luck if we're up against a Volturi-based cult. They act tough, but they're all talk. The biggest risk with them is that they bore you to death with long, banal conversation." Morgan snorts at his own joke, but quickly resumes his report when no one joins him. "But things are going to get dicier if they follow the ways of Millenium FREAKs," he announces as he holds up a paper-backed book.

"Volturi? Millenium?" Chuck questions. "Buddy, what are you reading?"

Casey rips the books away from Morgan. "Hellsing…a comic?"

"Manga," Chuck and Morgan correct at the same time.

"Breaking Dawn," Casey reads off the cover of the next book. "Stephenie Meyer? Is this some kind of joke?"

"Vampire fiction is steeped in lore," Morgan explains.

"From what I hear, this Meyer woman didn't exactly pay much attention to vampire lore," Casey responds with a disdainful edge to his voice. "More like she had a dream and then spewed her girlish fantasies out for prepubescent teens and lonely housewives to gobble up."

"You sound a little hostile there, John," Sara chides from the front seat.

"Don't tell me you're going to defend that drivel, Agent Walker. Wait a minute…you haven't read it, have you?"

Sarah shrugs and turns her gaze pointedly out the window. "Research."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Casey challenges.

"Hey." Chuck reaches a hand across the seat to grasp Sarah's and stroke a supportive thumb over her fingers. "Any reading is good reading."

"Just remember that when she wants to ice you down and douse you in glitter as foreplay," Casey gripes.

Chuck's dark eyebrows pull together and he leans toward his girlfriend. Out the side of his mouth he mumbles, "You said that was to improve my circulation."

Sarah keeps her eyes fixed on the scenery as she bites her lower lip—her guilty tell.

Chuck releases her hand to grip the wheel far more tightly than necessary. "Didn't know you had a thing for vampires," he grumbles.

"Well, regardless of the source," Morgan says in a businesslike tone, "it appears that unusual eye color is a trademark of the vampire. Ususally red, sometimes golden, even purple or silver. So you can bet cult members will be wearing some kind of colored contacts. It'll be a dead giveaway. Get it? _Dead_ giveaway…and vampires are technically dead? No?"

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The hatchback pulls to a stop just off a narrow, dusty road in a large forest. It's covered by foliage and a safe distance from the stone cottage at which they are to join the British contingent.

"We walk from here," Casey says in a low voice just before he steps out from the car, his eyes scanning the forest for hidden dangers.

He lifts up the hatch and Morgan rolls out with a groan. But he sportingly springs to his feet and begins to bend his diminutive body into a series of stretching exercises. He's shockingly limber. He flexes one leg behind his back and asks at full volume, "Why didn't we park closer?"

Chuck and Sarah have now joined them behind the car. Chuck motions to his friend to keep it down, and then explains in a whisper, "You can't always count on people being who they say they are. They could be part of a set up by Shaw—he's fooled the U.S. Government once before—or the other team could've been compromised while we were on our way over. Either way, we can't just walk right into any trap that may be waiting for us.

"We split into teams of two. Bartowski and Walker take Fiddler position. Me and Grimes'll Trick-or-Treat."

"John, this is Chuck's team now. He should call the plan," Sarah says. She looks to Chuck for instructions and Casey leers at him with a malevolent purr rumbling at the back of his throat.

"Yes, okay…" Chuck sounds decidedly less-than-authoritative. "Wh-what he said."

They split up and move silently through the forest. Before long, Casey knocks on the front door of a small, stone cottage while Morgan stands back, hidden by a tree—in what Casey calls "Mom on the Sidewalk" position. A young girl, maybe fourteen to fifteen years old, with raven black hair opens the door. Casey hides his surprise at someone so young being involved in the operation but then realizes the logic of it when he gives the pre-arranged greeting. "Is your mommy home?" he grunts.

"Why, yes. Do come in," the girl replies, also in accordance with the plan.

As he steps over the threshold, Casey turns to give a subtle nod toward Grimes, who then sends a signal out to the other team.

Milliseconds later, Chuck and Sarah land softly on the roof of the cottage. Chuck strips away a hunk of shingles, and Sarah pulls out a titanium mini-saw and begins cutting a perfect circle through the bare wood beneath. Before she makes the final slice, Chuck jabs a picket knife through the circle's center so that he can pull it silently upward, rather than letting it clatter to the floor beneath.

The moment he pulls it away, a white-gloved hand pops out and grasps him around the throat, stifling his girlish scream as it yanks him downward through the hole. Sarah grabs at Chuck's ankles, but it's no use against the strength of the hand. A second hand bursts through the roof next to her and wraps around her waist, pulling her through the new opening.

Morgan watches it all happen from his safe spot and begins bouncing up and down on his heels, wondering what to do. Is it time for a Leroy Jenkins? He's spared making the decision for himself when yet another hand smashes through the curtained front window and nearly rips his arm from the socket as it hurtles him through the broken glass opening.

His rump is slammed onto a wooden floor with his legs splayed out in front of him. The hand wraps tightly around his wrists and holds him fast. Morgan looks around to see the rest of his team in much the same position. Each one of them is held by one of the extremely powerful hands, which are attached to long, red arms that extend from…from…a large, red and black mass with a hundred eyeballs.

Chuck seems scared out of his mind while Casey and Sarah, although undeniably freaked, look more pissed off than anything. They're both glaring at a stern blond woman who stands in front of them with her arms folded across the lapels of her suit jacket. She shows no emotion, merely stares at the mammoth spider before her. She seems to be studying it.

"You're never going to get away with holding us hostage," Sarah warns in a surprisingly vicious voice. "The entire U.S. Government is keeping a close eye on this operation—"

She's cut off when the blonde raises an imperious hand to silence her.

Agent Walker doesn't know why, but the gesture shuts her up, and she lets the woman continue her intent focus on the creature in peace.

After a few moments, the woman proclaims, "Alright then, release them."

The white gloves loosen their grip on Team Bartowski and the arms retract. The multitude of eyeballs consolidate into two fiery red orbs that rise from the ground as the undefined mass forms the shape of a tall man in a red trench coat and matching wide-brimmed fedora. Wild black hair flows around his shoulders.

All four of the prisoners scramble to their feet and move away from the beast.

"Wh-wh-what is that?" Chuck asks.

"It can't be real," Casey assures him. "The Brits are always doing crazy experiments. You've seen Dr. Who. Hair and makeup, that's all it is." He sounds like he's trying to convince himself as much as Bartowski. His eyes flick toward the mound of metal lying at the red-cloaked monster's feet—it's the weapons, which the monster had extracted while he held them. The monster/man watches Casey with a wicked sneer, daring him to make a move.

"I apologize for the rather rough greeting, but we had to assure ourselves that you are, in fact, who you say you are before we start sharing secrets," the blonde woman says.

Morgan chuckles at the irony and immediately relaxes, although he keeps his safe distance from the beast, behind Casey...and Chuck...and Sarah. "Aw, that's okay. We were thinking the same thing. As soon as all three of them were inside, they were going to—"

"Hey, buddy," Chuck blurts. "No need to give away all the secrets. Now that we've established that we're all who we say we are, we can get to the task at hand. But, ah, how exactly was it that you ascertained we were who we said we were?" he asks the blonde, who appears to be in charge of the other team.

"As you've seen, my servant is a multifaceted being. Along with form manipulation, he has supernatural powers of perception. He can read minds," she adds in response to Chuck's confused look. "And he can mentally transfer information to me." Integra doesn't usually share this much, but now that she's established that she can trust them, she needs to gain their trust.

Sarah clears her throat. "Chuck, how exactly did _we_ ascertain that they are who _they_ say they are?" she prompts.

"Oh, right." Chuck's eyes glaze over and his lids droop, putting him into a trance-like state for several seconds. When his eye shoot wide open and are lucid again, he informs her, "They're who we're supposed to work with. This is Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, leader of the Hellsing organization, which works to rid England of undead pestilence. Our other 'friend' is Alucard, the organization's chief weapon and world's most powerful v-v-vampire."

"How do you know this?" Integra demands.

"Holy Hirano, Chuckman—Hellsing is real?" Morgan stammers.

"Apparently so," Chuck responds.

Integra lets out a disgusted huff. "Kouta Hirano began publishing our story with neither our knowledge nor consent. We only found out about it from some lunatic while participating in a reality show that never aired. At the time our organization was in need of funds, so when the show, erm, didn't work out, we hunted Hirano down and demanded a healthy share in his profits as well as an assurance that he'd continue to claim the works as fiction. I take it you're a fan of the comics, Mr. Bartowski?"

"Manga," he corrects. "And, er, not exactly. I knew who you were because I'm an intersect. I house a database of information."

"And we're in that database?" Integra's eyes go almost as wide as her round spectacles.

"Apparently so," Chuck says again, second guessing the wisdom of sharing that bit of trivia.

"Very well," Integra states, brushing off this unsettling fact for the moment. The important thing right now is that these newcomers can be trusted. "Seras Victoria, you may leave your post and join us."

"She's real…" Morgan murmurs, sounding very much as if a lifelong dream of his has come true. He then snaps back to reality and busies his hands at his cropped, black beard, smoothing it down. His hands stop moving and his mouth opens to a gape when a busty strawberry blonde in a revealing police girl uniform steps into the room.

He's not imagining it when her gaze flicks over to him and stays there. The corners of his slack mouth twitch in an attempt to smile, and she takes a step closer, transfixed by him. She runs a pointed tongue across her top lip as her red eyes nearly glow with lust. Not knowing exactly how to handle the attention, Morgan mimics her action and runs his tongue over his lips, thinking he looks sexy, but the effect is ruined when he starts gagging on a facial hair that's made it's way inside his mouth. He quickly recovers—there's no way he's going to blow his big chance with the hot blonde.

He's suddenly clapped on the side of his hairy neck.

"You're going to want to keep that covered," a deep voice sneers. Alucard pulls his hand away from Grimes' neck to reveal a bandage, which is stuck over a bleeding scratch on the new CIA agent's neck. "Must've nicked it when I pulled you through the window," the vampire explains without the least bit of apology in his tone.

Seras stops her forward movement and shakes her head back to clarity. "Thank you, Master," she says sheepishly.

Morgan rubs the bandage on his neck, and his disappointment that the blood is what had attracted Seras to him is quickly replaced by poorly concealed horror that his blood is what had attracted Seras to him!

Agent Walker has been busy processing all she's learned since entering the stone cottage. "If your organization exists to fight the undead, then why are you tracking Agent Shaw?"

There's just a hint of protectiveness in her question, so Chuck reminds her, "Agent Shaw who tried to kill you. Multiple times."

"Your general didn't tell you?" Integra asks.

John Casey steps forward. "She told us that you'd tell us, so I suggest you get telling and that _someone_ give me my weapon back."

"You'll get your weapon, Mr. Casey," Integra tells him. "But it's not going to do you any good with what we're up against."

"With all due respect, Ma'am—"

Morgan winces and informs him out the side of his mouth, "It's _Sir_."

"With all due respect, _Sir_," Casey begins again through clenched teeth. "I think you severely underestimate the power of my weapon."

"I'm certain your weapon is quite impressive," Integra responds with an ironic smirk, "but I hardly think it's going to be enough to satisfy the needs of _this _operation."

Casey and Integra stand practically nose to nose, and Chuck can see that Casey is about to launch into a tirade about the merits of his weapon, so he intercedes. "Speaking as the leader of Team Bartowski, the namesake, as a matter of fact, hehe, I must demand at this point that you fill us in on the details of the 'needs' of this operation."

Integra turns her steely glare on him.

"I-it's actually more of a request than a demand," Chuck backtracks. "But it would be in all of our best interests for you to tell us, wouldn't you agree?" he finishes meekly.

Now that Bartowski seems properly chagrined…and since he makes perfect sense, Integra concedes to his 'request.' "It appears that Agent Shaw was turned. Into a vampire. But he doesn't appear to be like any type of vampire we've come up against before."

"How do you mean?" Casey asks.

"The corpses he attacks don't reanimate as ghouls; they simply lie as bloodless husks, even the females who were clearly virgins. And his kills are always extremely clean. Precise puncture wounds, no tearing of the flesh, not a drop of blood left behind. More like a surgical procedure than a murder. That's how we knew the attacks were connected—the scene was always eerily neat and orderly."

Chuck's eyes narrow. "Shaw always was a little prissy."

"I don't see how any of this links to Daniel Shaw," Sarah says.

"After Alucard had a run-in with him, we knew he was American and must have been privy to high-level intelligence; he was able to anticipate Alucard's every move and dodge it. Furthermore, he seemed to know his weaknesses and came prepared with powerful religious relics, including the broken lance of St. George with which he severed off my vampire's head in order to buy himself time to escape. No one escapes my vampire, NO ONE!" Integra shouts and pounds the table in front of her.

The members of Team Bartowski exchange wary glances, and even Morgan realizes that this wouldn't be a good time to point out that someone had, in fact, apparently escaped her vampire.

The Hellsing leader calms down and continues. "We've come to realize that the whole run-in was a set up. He wanted to be found out."

"Why do you say that?"

Integra tenses her jaw and admits, "Because at the scene of the last murder, he spray painted on the wall '_Shaw was here_'."

"O-kay," Chuck says, wondering how to diplomatically tell Integra Hellsing that she's off her rocker if she thinks a bit of unoriginal graffiti is hard evidence.

Integra huffs impatiently. "Naturally we thought it was meaningless, some kind of hoax, but we followed up on it and found out that Daniel Shaw, former agent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, had escaped federal custody shortly before the killings began in England. Images of him confirmed that he was the same man Alucard had encountered. Additionally, a look into his background linked him closely to a name that seemed to permeate his thoughts as Alucard fought him: _Evelyn_."

Sarah gasps, "It's Shaw."

Integra give a small, smug smile at Agent Walker's realization and continues. "We see that Evelyn was Daniel's wife and that she was also a CIA agent, killed in the line of duty many years ago."

Sarah nods and stays silent for a moment. She'd been the one to pull the trigger on Shaw's wife, not knowing Evelyn was another CIA agent who was suspected of being a double agent. Learning that Sarah was his wife's killer is what had turned Shaw from golden boy agent to bad guy in the first place. And now…now he'd been turned literally into a monster? All because of her.

"H-how many people has he killed as a vampire?" Sarah asks.

"The first victim we can link to him was in April, in Paris. A Catholic priest. After that he traveled to Germany. Do you remember hearing about the sudden and mysterious death of the Princess of Saxony? That was his work. Then he appears to have taken a brief reprieve, until the killings started up in England this summer, where his pattern changed considerably. Rather than the solitary attacks on higher profile victims, he began killing random citizens en mass. Dozens had already been killed by the time we were called in. And then, after precisely one hundred murders, the killings stopped. He left us his graffitied note and disappeared.

"But he's left us just enough clues to trace him out here somewhere in this forest. Every time we start to close in on him, however, he disappears, only to let us get another whiff soon after. We've been locked in this stalemate for weeks now, so that's why we brought you in—we thought the team that had most recently worked closely with him could give us insight into his psyche; help us know how he thinks so that we can nail this bastard once and for all."

"But if you've linked it with the spring murders, it can't be Shaw," Sarah argues. "We saw him after that—back in California when he pretended to still be CIA. He wasn't a vampire."

"How can you be sure of that?" Alucard asks. He's passed himself off as a human more than once.

Morgan stops clicking away at the keyboard of his high-tech government-issued laptop—for him, access to these cutting edge electronic toys has been the best part of the spy game—and he says, "You know, it never did make sense that Shaw survived the missile strike that Captain Awesome and I set off. I mean, you all were protected by the truck you were in, but he was completely unprotected when it hit. It should've killed him…"

"…Unless he was already dead!" Chuck says, finishing his friend's thought and clapping his back. "And how did he escape from the Seine after I shot him? Was he already a vampire then, too? Or did the Ring pull his corpse from the river and reanimate it as a vampire so they could continue to use him? A CIA insider would be far too valuable to just give up."

"The Ring's done a lot of messed up things. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they were doing experiments to create synthetic vampires," Casey adds.

Morgan, excited at having made a legitimate contribution to the mission, goes for broke. "Sarah—his eyes! Did you notice anything different about his eyes during that time? If anyone would've noticed, it would be you, since you spent a lot of time staring deeply into them while he was human."

Chuck doesn't look quite so pleased with his friend anymore, but Sarah seriously considers the question.

"They _were_ different," she confirms. "Not a different color, but they were harder, colder…"

"More sparkly?" Chuck asks in a suddenly stony voice. "Guess old Shaw wouldn't require any_ icing down_, would he?"

"This is hardly the time for a lover's quarrel, Bartowski," Casey scolds. "Let's just accept that Shaw's now become a vampire, or is at least trying to pretend he's one. What information can we give you to help find that son of a bitch?" he asks, turning to Integra.

Integra looks pleased to have the conversation turned back to a productive course. "Motive," she says simply. "His methods and confusing behavior seem to indicate that he is up to something more than simply satisfying his appetite. What types of things motivated Daniel Shaw's actions when he was human?"

"Revenge," Sarah states, staring straight ahead. "I was the agent that was ordered to kill his wife. Once Daniel found that out, something snapped in him and he only seemed interested in avenging her death. It consumed him."

Integra is pacing the floor. "What do a French priest, a German princess, and a hundred random English victims have to do with avenging his wife's murder?" she wonders out loud.

"I've got something," Morgan, who's been clicking away at the computer again, announces. "I dropped in variations on search terms and this came up." He turns the screen so that they can all read it:

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_Raising the Dead_

_Raising the dead is a complicated matter and can only be accomplished by a being that is himself undead. Typically a corpse can only be reanimated if has been lifeless for a period of less than 72 hours; however, if a lover's life has been pre-maturely ended by the hands of another, it may be possible to resurrect him or her up to ten years after expiration. The procedure is actually quite simple, but gathering the necessary elements will be much more difficult. The first requirement is that the gatherer must be truly in love with the deceased. Then the following items must be consumed _in this order _(the larger the quantities, the better): _

_1. Blood from a priest in the country in which your loved one died_

_2. Blood from royalty of the country in which your loved one was born_

_3. Blood from one hundred citizens of the country of your loved one's paternal grandfather's heritage_

_4. The heart of the one who ended your loved one's life_

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The rest of the instructions are cut off the screen, but that's all they need to see.

"I shot Evelyn in Paris. That's why Shaw brought me there," Sarah explains.

Morgan clicks around some more on anther search. "I found her obit. Evelyn Shaw, born Evelyn Drake in Frankfurt, Germany. It's going to take a bit more to find out her lineage."

"Drake is an English name," Integra states.

"One of my favorites," Alcuard purrs unpleasantly while all others think about the final item on the list.

"He led us here," Chuck says. "He knew once his identity was revealed, we'd be called in on it. Sarah, it's a trap!" He grabs her arm. "We've got to get you out of here!"

"Too late," Alucard says, with an evil smirk curling his lips. "He's here."

Seras!" Integra commands, and the junior vampire rushes out of the room, needing no further instruction.

Alucard tosses Sarah and Casey their guns and then looks at the remaining weapon. "Oh, you've _got_ to be kidding me—a tranq gun? Was Spies R Us out of water pistols?" Chuck snatches the tranquilizer gun from him, and Alucard grumbles, "Leave it to a spy from a country that invented vegan vampires to shoot blanks."

Hellsing's prime weapon then reaches into his jacket and pulls out a blessed bayonet that he pilfered from Alexander Anderson last time he saw him—he just loves doing that. He hands it to Agent Walker. "I've got a little something special for you. Yes, _you_ I'd like to see make it out of this in one piece," he says with a wink that sends a shiver, both pleasant and revolting, down her spine.

As the others take up position at the side windows where they can see Shaw lurking in the distance, Alucard's body dissolves into a mist and seeps out the doorway. The others crowd around the window and watch as the charcoal grey fog surrounds Shaw and encapsulates his body.

Seras leaps down from above to land on the ground at the side of the cottage. An enormous double-barreled canon is strapped to her back with the barrels extending out on either side of her. As her heavily armed, curvaceous form moves away, toward Shaw and her mistified master, Casey lets out a low whistle and murmurs, "Nice guns."

"Down boy," Integra tells him and steps back to watch the show, completely confident now that her two top soldiers have the obstinate vampire surrounded.

"I suppose I should be scared now," Shaw's voice says, and it's odd, because everybody inside the cottage can hear it. "And I would be…if that was really me."

Alucard solidifies and tries to grab "Shaw," but the body that looks like Shaw melts away and becomes a circular river that surrounds Alucard and sweeps Seras Victoria in its current. The moving water immediately weakens her, and she's forced to drop the weaponry to keep afloat. She gasps and reaches her hand out to her master, who pulls her onto the small island, where they are now trapped.

"H-how?" Morgan stammers.

"It's an illusion," Casey states. "Mind tricks. We learn it in basic training, but it appears Shaw's supernatural state has brought his abilities to a new level."

Sarcastic clapping comes from the corner of the room.

*clap* _pause_ *clap* _pause_ *clap* _pause_

"Bravo, Colonel Casey, or is it just John now that you've been demoted?" Shaw says, now visible.

"How are you doing this?" Integra demands. "My vampires can see through illusions."

"Now, now, no good magician gives up his secrets," Shaw taunts. "Especially not an evil magician, mwahah."

Integra pulls out her saber and whips it across the room where it slices through Shaw and clatters into the wall behind him. Shaw is unscathed.

"I suppose that would have hurt," his voice says, "if that were really me…me…me…me…me." The last part of the statement echoes as that Shaw disappears and five more appear—one in front of each of the inhabitants of the large, open room.

Morgan's Shaw reaches a hand to the hairy throat and Morgan uses the only weapon he has permission to use—his laptop. He whips it at Shaw's head, but it goes right through it and a corner catches Casey, only ten feet away, right in the temple, sending the buff agent reeling.

Integra dodges her Shaw and sprints to recover her weapon so she can dispense of whichever of these Shaws turns out to be real, but she's in the path of Casey's unexpected fall and gets pinned to the floor beneath him. She's unstoppable with a weapon in her hand or with a vampire to call to her aid, but she's virtually helpless now, with both legs and one arm trapped under the bulk of John Casey's dead weight. She pulls his head up by the hair with her one free hand and screams in his ear to wake up, but it does no good. Morgan pulls on one of Casey's feet, trying to move him, but Casey's shoe slips off and Grimes goes flying into the back wall where he…you guessed it, smacks his head on the wall and passes out.

"Good grief!" Integra shouts in frustration.

Chuck and his Shaw are busy exchanging Kung Fu moves, none of which has yet landed, not surprising since they are both intersects. Sarah, meanwhile, landed a pretty good kick to her Shaw's head. He's knocked back and appears dazed, so she pushes him into the wall and knees him in the groin while she presses her forearm to his throat so that he's forced to stand straight and can't crumple. Their faces are only an inch apart.

"There's something you need to understand before I end you once and for all, Shaw," she snarls.

He responds with a stifled grunt—the only sound he can make with her constricting his throat.

Sarah grits her teeth together and speaks. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I killed your wife. I'm sorry that I hurt you so much that you turned your back on everything you used to believe in. And…I'm sorry I have to kill you, but you've left me with no choice."

"S-a-Sam," Shaw manages to choke out.

She's taken aback at hearing him say her real name. It reminds her that at one time the two of them were close enough for her to confide that to him. She stares into his eyes, and the coldness in them melts under her gaze. He opens his mouth again, and she knows that he wants to say some final words. She relaxes the pressure on his throat ever so slightly to let him whisper. She can at least give him that.

"I'm sorry, too," he whispers hoarsely. "And even though I can't deny that I hate you for what you unknowingly did to my life, there is a part of me…that will…always…love you."

In her shock, Sarah's arm loosens just a smidge more, and Shaw leans forward to press his lips to hers. She steps back and then grips the blessed bayonet, ready to plunge it into Shaw's gullet. But she becomes suddenly woozy and collapses into his arms.

Chuck had stopped fighting his Shaw the moment Sarah's Shaw kissed her. Chuck's Shaw lands a kick into Chuck's chest, but it goes right through, since it's a fake, and disappears. Now Chuck stands alone watching the real Shaw hold a barely conscious Sarah to him and kiss his poisoned lips down her throat, over her clavicle, and at the top of her left breast.

"Get your hands off her, Shaw," Chuck growls, and Shaw looks up at him.

"Or what? You're going to tranqulize me? Do you think that will have any effect at all on me now?" Shaw bends his head back to Chuck's girlfriend's milky white flesh and trails a pointed tongue further south than is necessary. Sarah moans and Chuck can't stand it. Shaw pulls his lips back to reveal a set of pearly white fangs. He's going to sink them into Sarah's chest and keep sucking until he's devoured her heart.

Chuck shoots a tranquilizer dart and hits a bulls-eye in Shaw's ear, penetrating his eardrum. The neo-vamp screeches and drops Sarah to the floor.

"Hehe." Chuck smiles and looks down at his trusty tranq gun. He has the same pleased-with-himself look on his face that Indiana Jones has every single time things are about to go terribly wrong.

Shaw slams into Chuck, and the gangly spy feels like he's been cut in half. He feels like he's been smashed into a tortilla when his back crashes into the solid wall. Shaw is at least twenty times stronger than he was the last time Chuck faced him. Chuck looks at him and lets his eyes blur. He's desperately trying to flash on some data that will help him, but vampire-Shaw is like nothing the CIA—or anyone—has ever come up against before, and so there is simply nothing in the database. He won't be able to stop him.

Suddenly, all the windows implode and the cottage shakes. The force is powerful enough to jolt Sarah into sitting up and rouse both Morgan and Casey. Integra shoves the burly CIA agent officer off and ignores the part of her that hopes they can try it again some time under more conducive circumstances.

A thousand bats swarm in through the window openings and flap like mad until they form the seven-foot tall Alucard directly in front of Shaw, who has turned to gape at the spectacle.

Seras Victoria kicks in the front door and stands with her shoulders hunched and her fingers splayed like those of a wildcat ready to feast. Her eyes blaze and flicker like an out-of-control forest fire. Alucard turns to her and smirks. "I'm going to let you have this one, Seras," he says, and steps aside.

As the she-devil stalks up to her trembling prey, Sarah musters enough energy to insist, "Wait! Seras, this is something Chuck needs to do for himself."

"No! No it's not!" Chuck asserts.

And so Seras descends upon Agent Shaw and gives Chuck some new info for his database…and Morgan some new visuals for his dreams.

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The End

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**Authors Note:**

You may have noted that teensy little tidbits were borrowed from _Firefly, The Archer's Tale, Batman _and fanfiction authors Master of the Boot & Metropolis Kid...Much thanks to all. :)

I hope you had fun with this. I had a lot of fun writing it. If you care to leave a review, well...I won't stop you. ;)

-LiLa


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